


Things You Don't Tell Everyone

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-14 17:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18952858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Jack discovers that the Guardians all have a dark side. Maybe teeth aren’t the only thing the Tooth Fairy collects and the Easter Bunny isn’t always a bunny . etc+5 Jack honestly doesn’t have a ‘dark secret’ like they do. Guardians are intrigued"This was a tricky one. It was hard for me to think of dark secrets that wouldn’t undo the Guardians being Guardians. But, I did the best that I could in the regular universe (though I was tempted to do a murder/crime human AU).





	Things You Don't Tell Everyone

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 10/19/2015.

“Where does that stone door even go, anyway?” Jack asked. “You know, the one on level B8? Nothing else in the Workshop is locked, and that’s even including the rooms that store all the tiny pieces that get put in the electronic stuff, and, well, I suppose there’s really no danger of anyone who’s going to steal tablets from Santa being able to find the workshop in the first place, so they don’t need to be locked, but—”  
  
“You did not damage that door with any ice, did you, Jack?” North had put down every single one of his tools, turned away completely from the ice prototype on his desk and was now looking at Jack with alarm. “It remains secure?”  
  
“Uh…yeah—yeah, I didn’t do anything to it; there was still lots I wanted to explore.”  
  
North sighed. “Good. I do not think he would have noticed you, because the slate is clean, you are a spirit and not really a child, and you are not from time and place where he was popular, but having the Krampus loose in general is not what I wanted to deal with today.”  
  
“Wait. The Krampus is real? And you—you were really in charge of him?”  
  
“Of course!” North said. “Why would you doubt that?”  
  
“Uh.” Jack leaned back against the wall. “Well, it’s just that the Krampus is pretty brutal, you know?”  
  
“I do know. That is why I did not want him out today. He is less popular and powerful than he was, but he can still be dangerous.”  
  
Jack opened and closed his mouth before deciding just to nod. Clearly, he was missing something if North was talking so casually about a child-snatching demon that he kept in his basement. It would probably be best to wait for more information.  
  
Further information only revealed that yes, North was serious, and he really kept a child-snatching demon in his basement.  
  
But then again, the Jack had heard of the Krampus, so he had to be somewhere.  
  
*  
  
At the Tooth Palace, he didn’t expect things to take a turn for the weird, even if all the lost teeth of the world’s children were stored there. But then he just had to ask about certain small sets of tools that he saw in the cubbies? Perches? Rooms? of the little fairies.  
  
“Oh,” Tooth said casually, “those are for taking the teeth from dead children.”  
  
“What!” Jack fell a few feet through the air. “Why?”  
  
“To replace the ones that are too damaged in the tooth boxes of living children!” Tooth turned to Jack and began explaining brightly. “Sometimes the teeth my fairies collect don’t work to store memory, whether because of cavities or because of the method of extraction—I honestly don’t understand what people do sometimes!—anyway, when there’s no memory in the teeth, it interferes with the way memories can be activated from the rest of the teeth in any particular tooth box. So it’s better to fill in the gap with a tooth from someone who doesn’t need it anymore.”  
  
“But those memories won’t be theirs,” Jack said.  
  
“Well, not right away, of course,” said Tooth. “We do our best to match age, gender, and ethnicity between donor and the recipient gap. Then the donor memory isn’t too implausible, and when it’s activated, a person’s mind will fit the details they know must be true over the donor memory, and hopefully overwrite it with a memory that’s really theirs. Hopefully a good one, because it then becomes magically unforgettable. And that’s how it works! Of course, sometimes the overwriting doesn’t go perfectly, and you get weird constructed memories, but, oh well! That’s the past, and it’s only valuable if it can be used in the present.”  
  
She beamed at Jack, who could only stare. “This still seems kind of horrifying to me,” he admitted.  
  
“Oh, well, I can go into more detail if you have time,” Tooth said. “That should help.”  
  
It didn’t, really.  
  
*  
  
“Bunny, I’ll be honest with you. The last time I hung out with North and Tooth they both told me something kind of unexpected and disturbing about themselves as Guardians, so if you have anything like that, can I just hear it now?”  
  
Bunny gave a laugh. “Right, let me think for a minute. What were North and Tooth’s things, anyway?”  
  
Jack told him.  
  
“Huh. And that kind of stuff really bothered you?”  
  
“Yes! Why wouldn’t it?”  
  
Bunny shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just that given—eh, we can talk about that later. Follow me, I’ve got some trees to look after. Keep your frost to yourself or you’ll get something really specific to worry about.” They entered a grove, and Bunny continued. “I guess that the thing about me you’re going to want to freak about is…well, okay. I do the eggs and chocolate thing on Easter, and you know as well as I do that that’s not the whole point of Easter. And I’m not trying to elbow in on the rest, honestly. So. Along with that, I’m the Guardian of Hope, and I’m a pretty major player in Springtime, and I’ve been doing  _that_  for a long, long, long time. Since the time it was a lot more common for people to try and do what they could to help me out.” Bunny bent to examine a graft on a small apple tree. “The hopes of springtime are really important for agrarian societies, of course,” he said. “You’ve got to have a good spring to have a good summer, and you’ve got to have a good summer to have a good harvest, and you’ve got to have a good harvest so you live to see next spring.”  
  
“Where is this going?” Jack asked. “More complaining about winter?”  
  
“You wish,” said Bunny. “People have done a lot of things to increase their hope for the foundation spring lays for the rest of the year. And with me—well, it actually always  _does_  make me stronger and help me get the spring going, even if the action isn’t the sort of thing I’d recommend, strictly speaking. And that includes human sacrifice.”  
  
Jack startled and swore, but at least, he thought, he didn’t just say ‘what’, because Bunny wouldn’t make that up. “Well—for the love of—okay, what on Earth is Sandy going to tell me, after this? That he really steals people’s eyes and lives in an iron nest on the moon?”  
  
“Ah, come on,” Bunny said. “It’s not like I need or ask for human sacrifice, and it’s incredibly rare now, anyway. As for Sandy, it’s not like his dark secret will surprise you or even be a secret. Sandy’s just managed to separate himself into his light side and his dark side, and you’ve met both.”  
  
Jack sat down abruptly. “Please laugh after I say this. It sounds like you’re saying that Sandy and Pitch are two halves of one being.”  
  
Bunny didn’t laugh. “Got it in one.”  
  
“I…well…fine. Okay. Fine. Why not? It’s not like I was an expert on the Guardians before becoming one. Then again, this does make a lot of stuff I vaguely heard more disturbing, well, or maybe less disturbing, or—or at least a lot different. Wait, though. Does  _Pitch_  know this?”  
  
Bunny frowned in thought. “Even Sandy doesn’t always know it. But he knows it more often than Pitch.”  
  
Jack was silent for a few long moments. “Why’d Pitch get the voice?”  
  
Bunny snorted. “You should have heard the things that came out of the Dreamlord’s mouth before he split! Trust me, the voice definitely goes with the evil side of him.”  
  
“Wow.” Jack rubbed his face. “I don’t get it, you know? Is it just because I’m young that I don’t have any of this kind of freaky stuff associated with me?”  
  
“Maybe,” Bunny said. “Maybe you’re just not thinking of it from the right perspective.”  
  
“I don’t know what perspective is going to make me think the things I’ve been told are less weird.”  
  
“I meant for yourself, Frostbite. You take credit for some blizzards, right?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Well. Ask Jamie if he can let you into the library to do some research on the ones you remember, how about. Let me know what you find.”  _You’re the one with the direct body count, kid,_  he thought, but didn’t say. No reason to rile him up or bias the search that much. What was there would be there, whether Jack Frost was a Guardian or not. 


End file.
